Destinies Lost
by phyreblade
Summary: A series of one-shots that describe the period between the ending of Chapter 3 of the SWTOR class stories and the final events of Chapter 9 "Knights of the Fallen Empire". Follows the character stories of my Destiny series, jumps around between each character and their companions alike. No real linear transition of time involved, totally random. And rated M, just in case.
1. Chapter 1 -- Towards the Star Fortress

The planet rose up to stretch across the shuttle's viewscreen in a bright, creamy beige reflection of what Theron knew good and well was the most gods-awfully boring heat and dryness. It didn't even matter how pretty the world looked just suspended there in front of them, growing larger and larger the closer the ship moved towards it. There simply was no time Theron ever visited Tattooine he didn't end up hot, sweat-ridden and miserable.

And usually pretty much shot up and at and over and around, too. Theron was pretty much convinced that the blasted Banthas lumbering across the sands of Tattooine carried blasters, anyway. He grimaced as he glanced over his shoulder, "You know, I really don't like Tattooine. Really. Don't. Like it. But hey! I do like _saying_ Tattooine. Just listen to the way the name rolls off your tongue …" Theron turned more so that he faced the rear of the shuttle and he could actually set eyes on the two men idling there. And really. Where did the alliance manage to nab such a fine piece of space transport, heh. Not that Theron asked anyone on Odessan. Considering some of the characters he'd seen rambling about that place, asking where _stuff_ was being acquired probably wasn't so smart a proposition.

Gaibriel looked up right then to slant Theron a toothy smile, and Theron couldn't help it. Just that much of a glance and his entire frame eased into a more relaxed posture, settled into calm comfort. As if nothing in his world could go wrong … It was always that simple, that easy around Gaibriel. A little grin or sideways look from the handsome turn of his brow, and you ended up relaxed, happy, and go-lucky even. Theron actually wondered for the longest time if the Smuggler had some kind of Jedi mind-trick going on, what with those pretty blue eyes of his, because no one seemed able to garner anger enough once they caught sight of his merest, glancing looks.

Seriously! Everyone loved Gaibriel! Every single one – and regardless of age, gender or even species. Theron was certain blasted _Arcann_ loved him, and just plain didn't want to admit it! Argh! It was maddening!

It had to be a trick! Something strange or weird going on, that only some incredible Jedi master might have gotten to the root of and only after the longest time of delving into it and through it. Plucking away at Gaibriel's mind. Theron considered mentioning it to his mother once upon a time. But he hesitated, worried what the other siblings might have to say or, even worse - _do_ about it. That Sith one …? Scary.

And then Gaibriel was gone, along with the rest of them, and Theron almost nearly forgot his meandering wonderings of Force abilities and how they might show up, or not, in any particular individual.

He was quickly remembering now, of course.

It was why he'd encouraged Lana to send Gaibriel out and about on these missions to gather together allies. Because if anyone could talk such disparate and often-times insane sentients into fighting alongside them, it was the Void Hound himself, damn it!

Now Gaib shrugged, slowly enough the thick, padded leathers on his shoulders settled back against the curves of his frame. The buckles on his chest securing those packs and pouches to straps that criss-crossed his chest stretched slowly and made several scratching sounds in the confined space.

Another thing that seemed to have stayed so much the same, by the way. Oh, and never mind how many years Arcann stole from Gaibriel. Nope, the Smuggler still carried items and materials he deemed interesting and valuable right there on his body and everywhere he went, to boot, still fiddled and played with sundry wires and doo-dads until they formed complex little machines that did wicked and incredible things to people he threw them at. Theron had long since stopped asking him what Gaib intended any particular thing to end up whenever he scavenged it from some random trash pile; like half the other questions he didn't bother asking because some things are just better off not knowing about.

Gaibriel rubbed the tip of his tongue across the corner of his mouth, deliberately thoughtful as he fought back another smile, "Is this the SIS itself admitting they've been sunbathing on the Beach? And here I thought that oh-so-pretty tan of yours was some product of your genes, heh. My bad." Theron chuckled.

He held up both hands, grinning, "Oh, a mom joke! Wow! You're scraping the barrel with that one. And hey. I'm not SIS anymore, remember?" Theron leaned his head sideways, watching as Gaibriel smilingly tucked several more of his small devices into a pouch that hung against his side, just above the curled edge of his belt. He semi-wondered what the little cylinder-looking objects would do once Gaibriel launched them through the air. _Semi_ , mind you … Not a full-blown wondering! No way!

Besides. Gaibriel seemed preoccupied. That joke really wasn't up to his normal standard, mind you. He typically managed something far more inveterate and engaging, something that communicated his desire to know you, understand you. But poking at Theron's family line only distracted, rather than invigorated. _What gives_ , he wondered. "Still not quite sure why you chose Tattooine's Star Fortress for this first run. Alderaan might have been a better option … Duke Organa specially requested our help, in fact."

That's when Khyriel looked up from the cushioned seat in front of the dejarik table, tapped against the game controls with the smallest flick of his fingers. His dark hair flared in spikey tendrils against his neck, inviting attention to the smooth curve of his throat. His leathered chestpiece didn't emblazon symbols of Imperial Intelligence. But it was black and finely stitched in a style eerily reminiscent of those wily figures that long inhabited Theron's darker imaginings … like a hint where Khyriel's loyalties remained strongest, even now.

Khyriel murmured. A throaty purr, that never failed to send a peculiar shiver down Theron's spine. How the man managed to entice such reactions by the merest sound of his voice was almost as fascinating as his brother's eye-trick, Theron thought. Hey! At least Khyriel wasn't flirting anymore. Small blessings, right?

Theron slowly frowned as he realized Khyriel wasn't flirting with anyone at all, actually. He'd been so busy avoiding the Agent over the past weeks he had very nearly missed that telling detail. Theron carefully examined the bent and turn of Khyriel's face as he stood up from the table to better judge his rifle's pinnings and charges. Because it finally occurred to him, how heavy both the men's personalities had become. As if seeing how much was still the same covered the utterly, terrible reality of pain hardening them both.

Khyriel didn't even look at Theron as he mentioned it, either. Like it was so much obvious, and why the hells hadn't Theron remembered, damn it. "Quite surprising, that the SIS would forget so easily where Gaibriel made his home." Then he speared Theron with a long look out of his dark chocolate-colored eyes, "Or perhaps those dossiers were left behind over the years. Forgotten, maybe. There could be value in that, mind you. People we don't want Arcann looking for."

Gaibriel shifted roughly, the angles of his face drawn tight into a look of hard, cold threat so completely alien to Theron's every memory of him that he almost shuddered back from the visage. "Arcann so much as fucking breathes on them, and I'll spit him over a fire to roast alive. Pieces, Khy. Fucking _pieces_!" Theron suddenly remembered those old stories Corso Riggs idly mentioned now and then, wondered how many of them were really true.

Khyriel shrugged, turning to grasp the rimmed edge of headgear that Gaibriel used whenever they ventured into the field. He tossed the piece of armor in a smooth arc over the length of the shuttle's berthing space for Gaibriel to catch up in both his hands. Khy vowed in a voice just as hard as his brothers, "I would help you at it, rather." Theron watched as the brothers finished their preparations, pulling the last bits and pieces of their armors into place. Down the brief hallway into the shuttle's small alcove that counted as a bridge, Theron could just make out the looming frame of the Star Fortress growing taller in the viewport.

Theron sighed tiredly, found himself actually praying. As if the deities in some long-forgotten universe might even be listening to him, mind you. But he prayed hard. That the brothers he had long since grown to call friends would return safely.

And that the feelers he'd set in motion worked faster to find all their people. The Outlanders were broken people in the meantime, and he should've damn well noticed.

* * *

 **The Star Fortress represents the latest flashpoint activity players can engage in during the "Knights of the Fallen Empire" expansion to the SWTOR game. Players pick the various planets where Fortresses are located, sabotaging each one to earn prizes and rewards that strengthen their overall alliance.**

 **So far my own Legacy characters who've reached the Star Fortresses include only Gaibriel and Khyriel. While the game doesn't allow the two factions to adventure through the flashpoint in teamed events together, I figure my sibling characters would be working together throughout this period of alliance-gathering.**

 **Also, a brief side-note, here. That in Smuggler Cant, the term "The Beach" refers to the planet of Tattooine.**


	2. Chapter 2 -- Korriban Burning

**There's indication in the opening scenes of "Knights of the Fallen Empire", that the attack on Korriban had already occurred by the time our characters are meeting with Darth Marr. I had already been imagining this particular scene, that showed that particular attack. Because I was wondering after seeing the initial trailer, what would happen if the attack on Korriban happened when Lusiel's daughter was on the world, training. When I heard them say in KotFE's opening, "The energy signature matches the attackers of Korriban," I knew I had to actually write it down. Here it is.**

* * *

Cytharat was screaming, screaming. But it wasn't the first time the sands of Korriban drank down such cries. The air didn't even tremble under the peeling refrain. His screams were just ripped away by the tearing winds that rose up against the red sky overhead. The Sith Lord only writhed there on the stone table where perhaps countless Sith had been plopped over the eons past. Like some scene from long-ago, like a story Talos Drellik might have chanted at her during one of his visits to Korriban, even. The entire landscape – with its ring of stone obelisks and the long length of rock table – all of it declared days when blood was spilled and given over to now-nameless gods and angels high above the world.

Jessa murmured to the others, "He'll die under their hands, long before he tells them anything they want to know." That ninny of a girl, Gratham's pitiable waste of a daughter, only snorted at her. Why was she so saddled with such burdens as this idiot girl, Jessa wondered. And _now_ of all times, no less.

"He's a Sith! And a Lord, to boot! He'll destroy them!" Gwyn Gratham declared pompously, "I highly doubt you'll ever achieve so much of a place in our ranks, anyway."

Jessa's mouth etched itself into a snide grimace as she twisted her dark head around to look at Gwyn. The acolytes who followed her called her Winnie. Like a bovine creature you rode across the fields of some distant worlds, maybe. What an ass, Jessa thought.

Jessa nodded at her slowly, "Not if those gold-armored warriors have anything to say on the matter, at least. They do seem pretty determined to find us." Jessa wasn't entirely certain where the warriors came from, actually. The shape of their armors were dreadfully unfamiliar, and she ached at the sheer lack of understanding. If she only knew who they were, she could hate them _and_ the place they came from alike. Hate would heighten the power trembling through her muscles right then, tighten them into readied strength.

But she could only watch them, study them and their techniques. Her aunt's voice, her training rang through Jessa's mind just then, " _You figure out how your enemies fight, it gives you a chance to meet them on equal footing. You watch, until you can anticipate their motions, their steps, so you can counter them before they're even made_." The gold-warriors moved in synchronized pairs, like two halves of some whole team. They depended on each other. There was balance, rhyme in their steady cadence – need of each other, above all. Good to know.

Jessa looked past Winnie's shoulder at the other acolyte huddled there in the obscure entranceway into the tombs, bit her lip to keep from smiling at him. Jole was her very favorite of the acolytes that crowded the classes with her; he shared her interests and fascinations, and even some of her abilities. They naturally fell together when Lord Cytharat approached the academy and declared his intention to instruct the potentials who gathered, there.

She didn't fail to discern Jole's real motivations in seeking out her friendship, either. Self-preservation at its finest - to seek out the strongest acolytes, the ones most likely to succeed, and to follow them accordingly. But Jole impressed her, all the same. He didn't pretend, didn't hang his head down, abashed. He looked at her boldly, instead, "You're going to succeed, here. In ways unheard of, even. _I_ want to see it for myself."

She snorted back at him, "Rather keep your head attached to your shoulders, more like."

Jole chuckled, "Would you prefer I was stupid? I can play at that, if you'd like." He made her laugh every day, with his bright red hair that fell in a mop over his eyes and his joking references to every challenge Korriban threw their way. The pair of them proved fast friends. They watched over each other's back, marching through the halls of the Sith Academy like dual halves of the same mirror. Whispers started following them along, words murmured behind them of alliances and unions. Then came the sneering comments, denouncements of Jole's family line – some obscure clan from Balmorra of all places. Jessa ignored the lot of it, just shrugged when her mother confronted the issue during a holocall, "I don't care what _they_ think. _I_ like him." And Lusiel nodded, her dark eyes approving of her daughter's certain adamancy, the Sith-strong determination that moved her to claim the boy.

Now Jole shoved the crazy tumble of his red hair away off his forehead, his dark blue eyes dull with studious consideration as he stared out from their tiny alcove at the tumbled bodies of those other acolytes. The ones who didn't move fast enough when the attack came on them, who didn't duck and weave into some semblance of sheltered cover. The ones who'd failed.

Jole was always determined, never to be like them. Like his brother, the one who came here to Korriban ahead of him and was destroyed. These sands consumed his brother's pain and blood, and Jole was quick to assure her they wouldn't take so much as that again. Not from him. Now he looked at her, "They're looking for _us_ , Jessa. The Force itself is riding them, to find us. They sense our power, and they won't give up the fight just yet."

Jessa's small, pert chin lifted up, "Fine. We show them what it is they're looking for, then." She looked out, towards the long stone table where Cytharat was twisting under the onslaught of those staffs the warriors used upon his body. His screams rippled towards them again, desperately loud to compel them into running away. He only wanted them to run, to flee and leave him behind, and Jessa knew it.

She knew it was more than fear or even agony that kept Cytharat from telling those warriors how to find the entrance into the Tombs, where the three acolytes were hiding. She knew it was affection that bound his silence, even more than the pain.

Her mother's brother - his dark eyes that always shimmered with soft bemusement when he considered her, as if he only ever saw her mother when he looked at her. And the pleasing games of "Sneak and Hide" he played with her, that always underscored the lessons he tried imparting, " _The Sith say it's fear and hate that's strongest. But love will bind a friend to you, with chains stronger than you can imagine, Jessa. Make your friends carefully, keep them. And they'll be tools on any field you battle._ "

Jessa tapped her small foot against the dust-ridden floor, tightened her grip on the handle of her training saber. Jole grunted, moved to stand alongside her so they could both peer out into the swirling red-dust of the stone circle. Neither one of them paid the slightest attention to Winnie's grumbled admonishment from behind them, "You're so stupid! Both of you!" They knew the gold warriors wouldn't consider a mere acolyte who would fight them, rather than run.

Let alone two.

Jessa and Jole flowed together, moved through the Force itself to meet the warriors gathered around Cytharat's shattering form. Their small bodies whipped the dust up into dervishes that slapped against the men's gold armors. And then came the ringing blows of their sabers, finding those soft places on their bodies not covered by armor at all – the slender curve of throats just under the rims of helmets, the tender line of groin between thighs and torsos, that low spot just behind their knees. Blood spilled out and onto the ground, and the warriors cried out wildly. They each shouted commands at the others, called each other knights as they tried finding order in a maelstrom of incredible drive and terrible potential from two tiny figures they could not really find. Even now, not in the mess and swirl of the flying sand and dust the young acolytes sent up into the air.

And that's when Cytharat reached up at them all, leaning on one arm against the table where he still lay prone. He flung his own power at them, using all the hate and anger their torture of his frame had nurtured and fanned into being. The fire of his rage bloomed in their bellies, burned with bitterest pain as they clutched at their stomachs and began screaming, dying there on the Korriban ground and far from whatever place they called home.

Jessa stopped then, stood proudly framed in front of one of the warriors and reached out to grip his helmet. She ripped the armor from his head to stare into his eyes, to see him, and she heard him grunt through lips stained red with the blood from where he bit himself to stop screaming. "… You're only a little girl!" Jessa smiled at him, just before bringing her training blade against the side of his neck with all the Force she could muster and heard a violent crack wing up into the sky overhead. Blood splattered the ground at her feet, and she stepped back, looked over towards her overseer.

Cytharat glared at her, "Damn your blood, Jessa Quinn! A Sith serves only his own interests, his own needs. He does not strive to benefit anyone else, but what might save his own self, rather." The Pureblood's fringe trembled against the sides of his face. But that was the only sign of his ordeal, as he lifted himself up from the table and slapped the dust off from his pale, tailored robes. If they were anywhere else - than standing in a circle of ancient obelisks with the scattered bodies of strange warriors crumpled all around them - Jessa might have thought him idly brushing himself clear of a brief stumble during a leisurely afternoon stroll. He utterly ruined the illusion by snarling through one more pained blast of breath, "You should have left me here to die! Too damn much like your blasted uncle, you fool!"

She crossed her slender arms over her small chest, sniffing her own nose clear of the Korriban dust. Jole stepped up to stand just behind her, skirting the small pools of blood and gore that thickened against the sands. He only grunted an amused sound when Jessa muttered a half-sniding grumble towards Cytharat, "You are welcome, my lord."

Cytharat waved a hand through the air, "Enough. I am in no particular mood for your absurd inanities, not today." He stiffened even further as Winnie tumbled out from the Tomb's entrance and raced towards them, yelling. Cytharat shifted a sideways glance at Jessa again, remarked, "The girl lives. I am … surprised. Do you make such decisions to only deliberately flummox me, then?" Jessa slowly wiped the perspiration that glistened along her dark brows as she watched the other girl march towards them.

Winnie pointed accusingly at Jessa as she stumbled to a stop in front of them, "You almost killed us all! How dare you!" Jessa shrugged, "It worked." She ignored Winnie and Cytharat alike to kneel down by one of the men she had destroyed. She tried to ascertain some notion of what they were. Aside from human, at least. She prodded the broken figure with her knee, before lifting his weapon up from the sand to consider the markings etched into its handle.

Jole pointed towards the man's belt, "It looks like a communicator of some sort." Jessa tossed the device towards him, watched him deftly handle the technology with keen, discerning eyes. So many people disparaged Jole's origins on Balmorra. But you never called a Balmorra native idiot when it came to military machines, even if it was so limited as a communications device, mind you. "The signal is keyed to the man's genetic signature. I can change it, though." He returned the thing to Jessa once he was done, watched her tap against its face and crowded close to her as the image of a beefy strong-looking soldier slowly took shape over its top.

Jessa wrinkled her nose at the figure, "Captain Pierce. Where are you?"

"Tombs, my lord." Pierce only sideways glanced at her through the holo, as he continued firing his weapon down whatever range was out of their sight, "We're nearby the entrance that leads out to the platform. You know the one? That Drellik fellow likely showed you the way, back when he visited last time. Your father's ordered you off-world, sent the Way on ahead. So get yourself to my location, do you understand?"

"I am not alone, captain."

"Noted. Just move fast."

Winnie kicked some of the sand on the ground over Jessa's foot, sneering towards the device as Pierce's holoimage disappeared. The girl had always disparaged the regular habit Jessa made of lauding and supporting Korriban's stationed troops, said it was a sign of her "common origins" and an utter weakness. It didn't stop Winnie from following behind Jessa at every turn, though. Sheltering beneath her shadow like a mouse hiding from a swooping predator might. Winnie just snarled, "We're to depend on the assistance of mere base men? Really?"

Jessa smirked at her, "You can stay right here, rather. I don't particularly care either way." At least Jole didn't hesitate. He quickly gathered up the scattered supplies that littered the area where they had come to study and understand the darker energies of the world. That new blood added to the place's power was no real surprise to either of them. They only worked quick to avoid losing their own lives there, too. Jole fell in behind Jessa, following her as she rushed back towards the Tomb entrance all over again.

Cytharat was next to her just before she stepped down into the dark, though. He laid a hand along the slender curve of her small shoulder, his tone slowly adamant, "They look to destroy our future today, destroy our legacy. _You_ will ensure they fail!" Jessa looked up at him, unsmiling as she accepted the commanding glare in his eyes, the reproach that lined his stoic features. She only nodded. No one remarked when Winnie stumbled after them into the Tomb, chased them through the curves and twists of the tunnels towards the sounds of fighting men.

They all followed Jessa, all of them moving in a rush and ignoring the rustling motions of kor'slugs along the walls and in the corners of each alcove they passed. They followed her, because she well knew the way. She trailed Talos Drellik whenever he ventured to Korriban, to search through its dark tombs and hidden passageways. They called him Darth Nox's seeker, the historian who discovered every one of the Dark Council's most prized secrets. Jessa only called him interesting, though. Now the others followed her experienced step.

And because she was strong enough to get through any slug that tried stopping her, to boot. Even the darkest ghost in those Tombs would've quailed back from the strength of the Wrath's child. She had Sith stamped across her very spirit, Jole would say so much later on. And they all knew it, sensed it like it was a living, breathing thing there in the dark.

Jessa heard the sounds of percussion and blaster fire as they neared the bend of the last tunnel, so that she slowed just before leaning around one stone corner to look out through the yawning entrance of the Tomb. Through the door, Jessa could easily discern the breadth of the Academy itself off at a distance. And the gold armored warriors that swarmed the grounds around its entrances, too. She scowled angrily.

Jessa hated every blasted lot of them right then, considered the utter joys to be won from consigning them to the most dire, painful chaos of the Abyss itself. Spilling their blood over the ground would be a pleasing start to the venture, perhaps. And for only a moment, Jessa gleefully imagined the ways and means of making as many of these Knights – they were no Jedi worth the word knight, either – make them scream, writhe and finally die right there on the red sands.

They were making Korriban burn.

Breaking it into pieces, apparently. She watched as slews of gold-armored warriors gathered into neat circles around one of the looming monuments overlooking the Academy's pathways. They were working in coordinated order, like bright, shining insects rushing back and forth and around, and shouting at each other several orders and calls. Until the tall stone figure shook, trembled and finally toppled onto its side in wide, awful chunks of rock and dust. Burying fallen Sith and acolytes underneath, too.

Their own soldiers were fighting breathlessly there in the entranceway. Pierce stood head and shoulders above the others, his helmet tossed aside so that the shorn fringes of his red hair stood up straight on top of his head in spiky, sweat-ridden clumps. He was pointing, shouting loudly to those soldiers still fighting alongside him, "Cover each other, use every blasted bit of energy in your weapons if you have to! We'll cut them all down!" The stone path of the entrance was littered with corpses in bright gold splattered red with blood, too. As if underscoring his command of the scene.

Jessa trilled a call towards him, a slow whistle he would understand was her very own. Pierce's chin lifted up, and he smiled widely as he released the handle of his bladed weapon, gripped the knife against his thigh. But he didn't look back towards her in the reaches of the tunnel. He only called out loudly enough for her to hear, the game they used to play on the training field together, "Four-flush, you bastards! Every last one of you!" Then Pierce tumbled down onto one knee, grunting and curling inward as if painfully wounded. Pretending, playing. His soldiers yelped out with distress and shock and the gold-plated Knights swarmed towards his back with loud winging cries of victory.

But Jessa flew! Like a bird let loose from its nest, she leaped through the Force and landed right in front of Pierce on the balls of her tiny feet, just as the Knights reached him in a single, terrible circle. Pierce grinned, slipped the handle of his blade along the dusty floor towards her left hand before ducking from under her way. And Jessa sprang up into the air, twirling on the very tip of her toes in a crazed milling circle. Like a child's toy, spinning, spinning, and both her blades flashed out in a ripping, whipping arch of vicious sharpness.

The blades caught the attacking Knights, one by one. Jessa was short enough, small enough the blades reached the men's most tender spots. Blood splashed out, struck the walls on either side of them in thick ropes and lines and coated Jessa herself. And the Knights began screaming, screaming as their lives were spilled out onto the ground and along the stone paths and walls alike. She destroyed all of them in a single incredible display. Until the ones still milling against the door tumbled back from the entrance in a rush.

Jessa lifted herself up from her crouch, breathing roughly hard and panting from the exertion. She sensed Jole coming up behind her, soaked in his Force-strong energy and smiled darkly at him. Blood dripped down across her small jaw, and Jole reached out with a single pale cloth to slowly swipe her face clean. Pierce rose up, glanced over at the remaining Imperials, "Now you've seen a real Sith. Never forget it." The soldiers ringed Jessa slowly, toeing the dead Knights from their way as they fell into neat formation around the young Sith lordling. Cytharat moved closer, murmured, "There's no time, we must move quickly."

Pierce grunted, "The platform's outside, come along."

Winnie stomped her foot, though. She glared at each one of the soldiers with the most imperious disdain, "Don't think to command me. You will obey, rather." But Pierce just snorted at the arrogant girl.

"You're a fool, if you think I'm half as worried over your commands. As I am those of the Wrath. She's the only one I really obey, trust me. I fail to get her daughter off this dustbowl of a planet, and I'll lose more than my teeth this time." Pierce gestured, moving the soldiers into a rough formation around the Sith acolytes and their overseer.

They moved towards the entrance in a sharp wedge, fanning out directly as they marched steadily towards the landing platform. Their weapons began firing as they emerged out from the Tomb, and the red sand swirled up and over their heads in brilliant twisted eddies of hot air. The world of Korriban itself seemed to be screaming its defiance of the force attacking it, and the Imperials yelled just as loud, their wild cries of rage and anger reaching up into the heady sky. They cheered and called aloud, falling in a rush towards the landing platform at the far end of the dust-strewn pathway.

But the Empire's soldiers stopped short, stumbled to a halt as they suddenly came face to face with two men, the twins who'd cut such a terrible path across the galaxy's worlds. One dark and one light, their garb as compelling bright as their respective miens. The determination that highlighted their approach, as each one of the twins stepped forward and down from the platform. Korriban's destruction lighted their gaze, the hard, terrible looks they leveled on the soldiers in their red and black armored plates. And the gold of their sabers sang out shrill and vivid up into the spinning madness of the air, as they strode forward.

The gold warriors were commanded by twins. Of course they would move in pairs.

Then Jessa hummed her own song, commanded the soldiers around her. The Imperials moved from her way as she stepped out in front of them, with Pierce alone looming just behind her. He was huge behind her small, fierce frame, so that she looked even more tiny as she braced herself in the center of their path. Pierce leaned down, whispered against her ear. Jessa breathed in slowly and nodded, her right hand clutching the folds of a long cloth scarf against her side. Her training saber tapped her left thigh in a slow, steady cadence. Tapped, like the rhythm of her own heartbeat, or her breaths. One, two, again and again, slowly, surely.

The twins faced her, both men studying her with methodical precision. Trying to discern her, understand her. Jessa pressed her lips into a thin smile, so that her blue, blue eyes shined brightly out from under the dark wash of her ebony-colored braids, and she promised them through the very Force that ached in the sand and dust of Korriban. Promised that she would fight them. The one in dark robes called out to her, "What are you called, girl? What is your name?"

His brother grunted, "Before we destroy you."

Jessa tapped her blade against her thigh again. "I am _Sith_ ," she told them. And she launched herself forward, running fast. With energy whipping against her small feet, using it to compel herself along and then up. Jessa lifted herself up, up. Until she was sailing through the air and over the heads of both the twins. They twisted their heads up, trying to follow her and saw her whipping out at them with that piece of waving cloth even as she flew along. The trailing ends of the scarf lashed out; like a flog, it wrapped around the throat of the light-colored brother. He spun around on the balls of his feet to face the small girl as she tumbled down behind them onto the red dusty ground in a single crouch, and he glared at her through narrowed gold-brown eyes.

Glared at her, until the thunk of the other end of the scarf falling against his back rang out through the stillness between them. Jessa smiled at him one last time, just as his eyes went wide with realization. She lifted her hand up, waved her middle finger through the air in his direction. Taunting him with the crude hand signal taught her by the soldiers who gathered and instructed her over the years. Then the grenade she had tucked into the folds of the cloth before sending it around his neck - it _exploded_.

The percussion of the blast lifted all of them up, sent some of them tumbling backwards onto the ground. Red sand shot up in crimson sharp needles that flew at them, burned their skin and peppered their softest bits of flesh. The warriors gathered around the twins screamed and writhed in pained lumps all along the ground, and then they all disappeared as the sand fell back onto the ground in a dark cloud of dust and smoke. Pierce appeared out from the storm of swirling dust clouds, rushing towards Jessa with his thick arms outstretched and yelling behind him towards the other Imperials, "Here comes the Way! Overhead!"

The huge freighter winged low, zipping down from the red sky over their heads to settle into neat place right alongside the shuttles lining the landing platform. Gorgeous piloting, as usual. Jessa jumped into Pierce's hold, her gaze flying to find Jole running behind the soldiers as the ramp of the Freedom's Way lowered with clanging force against the Korriban ground. Pierce ran with her in his arms, focused only on reaching the Way. To get off the planet with his charge. And then they caught sight of Gaibriel Duncan, watched him duck out from the Way's airlock and wave at them, shouting.

Jessa looked back only one last time. Looked back, in time to watch another monument collapse onto the ground under the weight of attack and fomented rage. And she saw them both, saw those twins together there on the ground. The dark-garbed one looked back at her, his eyes wide and sad as he held onto his bloodied brother.

That one looked at her, too. He screamed his hatred towards her back, his face splattered from the blood that streamed out of the wounds on his head, his face, from his shattered, destroyed arm. Screamed loudly, just as her uncle reached out to grasp her, hold her and carry her away to safety.


	3. Chapter 3 -- Finding Him

**_This is set at some midway point in the five years that the Outlanders are in carbonite freezing. I'm remaining fairly loose with the actual, precise timeline of the events at least. Thing I'm fairly sure of, though: that to somehow justify preserving Kaliyo's life in the opening of Chapter 10, I needed to give Khyriel incentive and debt enough he would hesitate to kill her. This was the result of that consideration._**

* * *

She stared down at the floor dazedly, watching the shining tiles splattered by droplets of red blood. One … Two. More. How many would the floor accept, before there wasn't enough left inside her? Raina rather considered the puzzle for long, long moments, if only to distract herself from the room around her. The floor was a far more welcome companion just then, at least.

"You will speak."

The blood created a fascinating pattern on the floor, too. Perhaps if she canted her head just so, turned her face back around then maybe she could make a real picture of some kind. It almost looked like a feline animal, if you only considered the peculiar shape and curved angle of the blood just _there_. Patterns were singularly distracting, too, she thought.

"Tell us. We'll stop this, if you only tell us what we're asking."

Raina snorted at that particular bit of nonsense. So that the blood running down from her broken nose spluttered back up into her nostrils and left her coughing roughly harsh. She writhed against the bonds holding her suspended above the floor, pressing her chin down against her collarbone to try holding still long enough to catch her breath again. Wouldn't it be bad at this juncture, if she just died choking on her own blood like a fool ninny that couldn't manage a simple snort? " _The distractions aren't working, little thing. Play a different game now_."

Raina stopped, concentrating on the sound of his voice whispering so softly through her mind all over again. Teaching her, the way he always did. What steps to follow, what direction to turn so that she wasn't afraid and uncertain as she went along. Always, always watching out for her.

Although the first time she heard him there, he was screaming, rather. Screaming from fear and pain and sheer, unmitigated terror, " _Lou! Help me! Stop her_!" His voice made her jump and grab onto her father's leg, cuddle her face into the top of pappa's knee as if she could hide from the horrible sound trilling through her thoughts. Her father reached down to cradle the side of her face in the cup of his large paw of a hand, not looking down at her even as he continued pressing his friend to help, "You know what it is, to be a father. To want nothing so much as another _day_ for your own daughter … Lucian, she won't last an hour on Korriban! I know it!"

Her pappa's friend leaned his head sideways to look over towards pappa, and Raina studied him carefully. He was so _dark_. Not his skin, not like her own mocha-colored complexion. It was more the way that he felt to her, like there was a core sense of anger and hatred burning inside him and utterly focused. Like there was some person he really, really hated more than anything, or something he wanted to keep them from doing. He was … protecting something. Or someone, maybe. Raina was confused by the wash of feelings and sensations, the colors and whispers of him that shined brightly enough to her.

So she studied the way that he looked, rather. He was human, like her and her own pappa. His skin wasn't so ruddy as her father's, though. He was pale instead, like so many of the people who lived and fought and worked themselves harshly under Sith rule on Dromund Kaas. But his hair gleamed like a midnight black, when the clouds chanced to part far overhead and you couldn't even see the stars from all of the city's lights.

Then he looked at her and she saw his eyes for the first time, and some part of her wavered with familiarity. Like she might just know him, understand him. Except that he was an adult and she wasn't, he was big and she was still so little – and he was going to die so much before she did. The knowledge was just there, just sitting in the center of her chest like a leaden weight and it hurt. Because she couldn't say anything, without appearing to be the most terrible threat and her pappa swore she must never tell people the things she saw. The death or the dying; that thing that whispered to her whenever it was close enough and thought someone needed knowing, perhaps.

But then the voice thrilled through her senses again and she whimpered weakly. The man's eyes narrowed down at her. Raina thought suddenly that she would never, ever forget his eyes. The calculation he considered her with, the studied appraisal. He turned to look at her pappa, "She isn't fearful of _me_. It's the Force, rather. What's it telling her?"

Pappa hesitated, "Lucian …" The dark-haired man only waved his hand dismissively, though. His uniform was finely starched and pressed, with several rank designations denoting him worthy of tremendous honors. The soldiers and personnel that angled sharply along the walkways nearby kept eyeing him with respectful deference, as if wondering if they should stop long enough to salute or acknowledge him. Except that he only paid notice to her pappa right then and barely saw the crowds moving around them aside from observing the others were far enough away they could continue conversing.

"I recognize the signs, Dace. I'm merely pressed for time at the moment, not fearful of anything the child might have to say." The man pappa called Lucian leaned his head backwards to look up at the tall building looming over their heads, until it looked like it was poking the sky itself in some threatening gesture of imperious authority, "The Sith are testing my son today."

Raina frowned, "He isn't Sith. Not like Loo."

Lucian turned to look at her like a whip, his brown eyes narrowed into sharp daggers as he looked at her. Pappa tightened his hand against her shoulder, pulling her even closer against his thigh as he angled his own body protectively in front of her. Lucian ignored pappa, though, and only grunted towards her, "That's what he calls his sister, in fact. No one else addresses her so."

Raina nodded slowly, "He doesn't like being afraid. But he won't be able to stop it, she's bigger than him and no matter how much he screams the servants run and hide."

Lucian straightened. He never looked at pappa, he never looked afraid. And he never once looked like he doubted anything she said. He just looked cold and angry and hard and very, very scary. He asked her, through a jaw that barely moved around the word, "When?"

Raina sighed and whispered, "The Sith are leaving now. And she is so angry at him. It will be … very soon now."

"You see him dying?"

"Maybe … There's blood on him, and he hurts."

Lucian suddenly seemed so very tall as he looked over at her pappa. He looked bigger and more frightening right then than her own pappa ever, ever looked. Like he was almost one of the scariest Sith that hunted her at night through her dreams, determined to carry her off to the hellish place pappa called Korriban. But he wasn't angry at her just then: "Apparently the Force itself is working to keep me from losing my son, Dace. It's enough then; I'll do what it takes to find your daughter somewhere safe and out of Sith notice, yes."

" _Lou! I'll keep her from hurting you, Lou_!" And his voice never left her mind again. Never since that moment, as she raced to keep up with Lucian Phyre. Stumbling along the carpeted hallways of the tall, tall building in Kaas City, with her hand clutched against her pappa's fingers and Lucian barking out orders as he strode angrily through the doors of his own estate in time to hear his son's screams for real, to see his little boy standing as straight as he could in front of his sister with blood spilling down over his face. His face that was so much like his father's …

Not even after Kaliyo told her he was gone, insisted it was so, "He's dead, Temple. Dead! Like toast in one of those fancy-assed machines in that pearly space he called a mess! Fucker didn't even stick around long enough to say buh-bye, just sent us off to shoot the bad guys and then bam! Whole ship he was on went up in flames! He. Is. Dead!" They argued and argued, over weeks that turned into months and he still didn't return. As the ships of damned Zakuul invaded and missiles rained down over Dromund Kaas itself, with Kaliyo laughing like a maddened animal as she pointed towards the flaming debris, "Would he ever let them do this, if he were alive, Temple? Would he?"

And Raina knew the truth. That if he could manage it, Khyriel Phyre would have done every possible thing he could to break the Zakuul war machines into brilliant, sparkling pieces that made for another pretty light show in the skies over Dromund Kaas, before he ever let them destroy his home world. She _knew_ that!

But she still heard his voice, in her mind and in her spirit. Trilling, whispering and soothing her, " _Don't forget. Don't ever forget_." So she could not. She clung to that presence that was him, always him against her every single Force sense and never mind what anyone told her that was different. Kaliyo and then Vector, Lokin and Scorpio, too – none of them heard him like she did and none of them could manage to care and desire him so much. She had to know _for sure_ , is what she only ever responded whenever they demanded, insisted she let him go finally.

Raina had to know …

"Emperor Arcann wants the Agent's son. We know he had a son by you, _know_ he registered a union that produced a child. Concerted attention would have been given his progeny, because of his Sith heritage. And then there was you, of course." The toes of the Exarch's boots slid across her view, smearing the blood pattern on the floor as he stepped through it. Raina frowned down at the floor, trying to make sense of this new lack of discernible order, the discord caused by the Exarch's simplest motions. She blinked, barely listening as the Exarch kept speaking. What was he saying?

Lucan. They still wanted her son. But why? Lucan was not Force-strong, even if he did enjoy the brilliant turn of intelligence his father demonstrated so easily. What did Mako call Khyriel once? She laughed when she said it, Raina remembered: "A slicer's mind, without needing a single implant to make it work. That's your little brother, Kas." Is that what Zakuul wanted? Or did they want to make an example out of the Outlanders' own children, rather? What would they do to her own Lucan? To the others? Raina even mumbled the question past the blood dotting the corner of her mouth, "Valuable boy, right? Valuable to me, I know. But why you?"

The Exarch harrumphed, ignoring her curiosity. The bastard. "I wonder. Does he look much like his father?"

Raina actually chuckled then. Her nerves were twitching from the stimulation of the pain-inducing machines attached to her fingers, her back and shoulders. She hung limply against the bindings holding her in place against the flat surface as it rocked gently in suspension over the floor, and she just sniggered as she thought of her son.

Of course Lucan looked like his father! Only two of the children looked different than they were anything less than miniature copies of Lucian Phyre himself. Torian's daughter looked like her own father, rather. And then there was Sariel.

Quinn once regarded his son bemusedly, the silver-blue of his eyes and pale blonde hair that was so much different than any of Lucian's line, "I might have actually believed Sariel sprung from an entirely different mother, even. Except I verified his features up against those of Lusiel's own mother. He looks like his grandmother. Unfortunately." Quinn twisted a smile at Raina then, telling her, "It's too bad he couldn't have had horns, like Gaibriel's sons. So long as he still looked like Lucian Phyre, the way they do. Horns or not."

Lucan even shared the same kind of expressions on his face, as Khyriel would. The charm, the ready twisted humor and smiles, the blinking curiosity and sharp turn of his face whenever something caught his keen notice, the determination to know everything, anything and all the time, even right away – no, Raina never doubted her son was Khyriel's own child. Even if Lucan surprised the both of them so thrillingly, just in his conception.

It happened on Makeb, of course. He was made even as they fought to secure his father's life from the Dark Council's worried, anxious ire, even as the world around them was crumbling into sheer bits and fragments. He was made in the darkness, with Khyriel's breath in her ear as they huddled together in the dark and waited for the Empire's forces to discover and pull them out into the light again. And they didn't know it until days later.

She remembered staring up at the blinking message of the medical screen, listening to the droid droning its advice on proper care of a successful pregnancy. Raina remembered the wash of tears against her eyes, the way she blinked furiously, "But I can't get pregnant! They told me it wasn't possible!"

"The reproductive process of the human genome remains a rather extraordinary mystery, indeed. It is unknown why your system has allowed for successful conception." Raina only hugged her abdomen as the droid continued droning and droning, wonderingly ghosting her fingers against the curve of her pelvis where she imagined her own baby all nestled and cradled. Was he sleeping in there, she mused. Khyriel's baby! Then the droid intoned so mechanically, "The embryo's genetics identify it to be male. Would you like to name it now, or wait for its full gestation and birth?"

And Khyriel's own voice from behind her, the sense of him that drifted against her Force ability with marveling pleasure and deepest satisfaction. How happy he was right then, even terrified that she was on the world of Makeb as he fought so hard to keep it in one single piece. To walk into the room and hear the machine describing their child; he was awed, reverent nearly. He told her huskily, "We'll name him now. So record it appropriately, droid. My son is called Lucan." His son. They _still_ wanted his son. It only didn't make sense. Fear rippled through her for a moment … " _They can't have our son, little thing. You've kept him safe for me_."

"You will tell us what we want to know, of course." The Exarch wanted to find Lucan. He would probably want to know where Lucan's cousins were, as well. Raina very nearly grinned as she imagined how well finding them might go for the Exarch, considering the forces that shielded them so utterly. Quinn's notion, of course. Because _he_ was always certain their children would remain targets.

Quinn told them, "It doesn't matter what anyone says on the matter, I _know_ my wife lives! She will remain Zakuul's enemy and they _will_ seek out her children, her family, you and me alike. All of us! They will try to use us against her, and _I_ will refuse them the chance. I will never again be used as a bludgeon against my wife. Not ever again." But he wouldn't tell Raina how he could be so utterly sure, no matter how indelible his certainty was. He only worked to perform precisely and certainly the motions he insisted were necessary.

And now Raina was glad for every bit of it. _Quinn_ , she thought. I never wanted to owe you such a debt, but you've secured my son. I love you for that much.

Pain rippled along Raina's nerves again, the machines firing pulses of energy along her pain receptors with fast, vivid power. She tautened against the bindings, whimpering through her clenched teeth and writhing against the hard surface along her back. She finally opened her mouth, letting the blood from where she bit her lip to keep from screaming drop down onto the floor as she screamed. The Exarch screamed back, "Tell me!"

Raina whimpered, tried curling into a ball and couldn't. She felt like an animal caught in a trap and nearly desperate enough to rip against its own paw to get loose. She wailed and cried, tears dripping down along her bloodied jaw as she spat towards him, "I will not! Believe _that_ , if you believe in anything at all! You … fuck! I hate you!"

The Exarch sniffed through the faceplate that obscured his features from her, leaning backwards onto the heels of his boots as he looked down at her. He murmured. Like he was having conversation over an afternoon's tea in the finest establishment back on Coruscant, perhaps. The prig, she thought. He said to her, "I saw him, you know. That day, when all the Outlanders were taken into the Emperor's meeting hall, to face the Throne itself. What is it they called him? Cipher, yes?" She wouldn't even tell them his name, Raina thought. And she bit her lip again.

The Exarch knelt down, until his face was aligned with her own and he could watch as she wearily lifted her eyes up to look him straightly. He sighed, reaching up with his gloved fingers to release the clasps under his neck that held his helmet in place. Then Raina could see his face, his eyes!

Lesin Tyn was a human, an oldster really. His hair was sparse on his head, only little brown shoots of fuzzy scruff that stood straight up on the very top of his head. His eyebrows were thick, though. A bushy line of black hair ran from one corner of his eye along his temple to the opposite side of his face, unbroken anywhere along the way so that it became like some dark and terrible threat against his otherwise pale features. But Raina only concentrated on his eyes, the hazel eyes set underneath that thick bush of hair.

"I thought your Agent admirable enough, the way he stood there. So defiant and ready. Like he knew what his fate would be and faced it with whole willingness." Exarch Lesin Tyn scowled then, "If only he could finish this one last task. I hated him then."

Raina watched his eyes, the way they glittered with anger and wrath for long moments. And she saw! The Force rippled and swayed, so that she finally found what she was looking for. The months and the years since she last saw him, held him, touched him – Khyriel! My own Khy! She found him right then, in the death of the man in front of her.

Raina lifted her bloodied chin, until her face was level with Lesin Tyn's own features. And she told him, "You will see him one last time, too. They'll come for you, both of them. But Gaibriel won't be the one that puts the blade so gently against your throat. He'll let Khyriel step close enough, so that he can look at me through your eyes. He'll say what day, what place … Because he wants me to know where and when. Then he'll say, 'Because you hurt her.' And then that blade will saw your _fucking_ head off." Then Raina smiled, so that he saw the blood lining her own teeth, "I don't know where my son is, Exarch. Not for more than a year now. Quinn thought it wise enough, that none of us really know where they are. It keeps them safe from you bastards."

Lesin Tyn was white-faced and stiff as he straightened, until Raina could only see his thighs from her terrible discomfiting position. She looked down at the floor, at the smears of her own blood against the tiled surface underfoot. She watched the Exarch's boots shift along those fresher splatters of blood now and smiled again when he cursed heavily, snarling a command sideways, "Kill her. She truly doesn't know where the boy is. She's useless." He turned sharply on his heel, moving to leave. Raina chuckled as he went, sensing his aching desire to know what date Khyriel gave her through the Force. She knew his shoulders went even more stiff when he heard her laughter.

Then he was gone, and the technicians were maneuvering the table up, so that a whirring sound filled Raina's ears and new hurts consumed her for long, telling moments. She blinked up at the ceiling then, listened to the two men arguing over the best dosage in the killing injection they were preparing. And she smiled again when the door suddenly flew open and the men started screaming.

She lay there, idly considering the pattern the men's blood might make on the floor on top of her own. Until Kaliyo's face darted into her frame of reference and she was glaring down at Raina, "Fucking idiot! You fucking idiotic fucker! I told you not to do this stupid fucking stupidity of a thing! I swear to every god there is, this is the last fucking fuck of a time I fucking come to save your skinny runt of an ass, Temple! I so fucking hate you! I should just leave you here!"

"Wow, a whole eight fucks, Kaliyo. I think you're actually starting to care for me, if I warrant eight complete fucks and then an ass, too." Raina smirked up past the Rattataki woman, barely noticing as Kaliyo roughly jerked the bindings loose from around her slender frame. She only smiled as she looked up at the ceiling. At the blinking light of the recording device situated just above the table, and she said, "Quinn was right, Kaliyo. They're _all_ alive."

" _I miss you, little thing_."


End file.
